


Comfortador

by glassonion_archivist



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-06-25
Updated: 2002-06-25
Packaged: 2019-06-19 11:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15508746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassonion_archivist/pseuds/glassonion_archivist
Summary: "Oh, Master, grant that I may never seek / so much to be consoled as to console"





	Comfortador

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Glass Onion](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Glass_Onion), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Glass Onion’s collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/glassonion/profile).

  
Comfortador

## Comfortador

### by Victoria P.

Subject: [glass_onion] FIC: BtVS: Comfortador: 1/1 (Xander) Date: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 2:59 PM 

Title: Comfortador  
Author: Victoria P. Rating: Gen  
Archive: Lists, Muse's Fool.  
Spoilers: Whole series through Grave 

Summary: "Oh, Master, grant that I may never seek / so much to be consoled as to console" 

Disclaimer: If I owned them, it wouldn't have taken another three seasons for Xander to save the world. 

Feedback: Always welcome and more appreciated than you know. 

Notes: Thanks to Jen, Pete/Melissa, Dot, and Meg. You can't keep a good Xanderista down. _g_

* * *

Comfortador 

He carried her down from the cliff. She was too drained to walk, and he just wanted to keep her close. She was light, almost hollow -- too delicate to have held the power to end the world. 

Buffy and Anya took Giles to the hospital, leaving Willow in his care. 

He might fail at everything else in his life, but the one thing he'd always passed with flying colors was Willow 101. 

She curled up on the couch and he wrapped himself around her. They had done this a thousand times, and, luck and the Hellmouth willing, would be able to do it a thousand times more. If he had anything to say about it. 

And apparently, he did. 

For once, he'd had the answer when no one else could even figure out the question. 

He held Willow, just breathing her in, as she slept the sleep of the dead. But not the really dead. Just the metaphorically dead, he reminded himself, and felt his breathing hitch. He hadn't cried for Tara, hadn't let himself. He'd needed to be strong for Dawn and Buffy, to take care of yet another apocalypse. 

But now he couldn't stop. 

He remembered losing Buffy, and how the only thing that had sustained them for so long was the idea that they were going to bring her back. 

There was no coming back for Tara. 

His shoulders shook, and he soaked Willow's hair --glimmering red-gold in the late-morning sunlight -- with his tears. 

She woke with a sob. 

Dawn had been sitting within touching distance, and now she, too, began to cry. Xander held out the arm that wasn't currently under Willow's body, and Dawn crawled onto the couch with them. 

They were one large, sobbing mess, grieving for Tara and all the light that was gone from their lives with her death. 

Xander knew that he needed to be strong, and that this -- this was the basis of his strength. He could -- and would -- give them all the comfort they needed, a shoulder to cry on, a body to batter when the grief turned to rage. It was something he was good at. He'd spent his whole life looking for one thing to be good at, and he was suddenly grateful that this was it. 

He could give comfort to his friends in their time of need; simply by loving them as he always had, he could help them. 

It might not always be enough to protect them, but this time, it was. 

And he could live with that. 

~fin 

* * *

victoria 

"I don't mind the sun sometimes / The images it shows /I can taste you on my lips / And smell you in my clothes / Cinnamon and sugary and softly spoken lies / You never know just how you look in other people's eyes..." -"Pepper" - Butthole Surfers 

The Muse's Fool:   
<http://www.unfitforsociety.net/musesfool> read my diary: <http://musesfool.diaryland.com>

* * *

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Victoria P.


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